Horse Prayers: Poems from the Prairie

Moon

Wolf Moon

Wish

We felt them close

before we had skin,

from an infinite prairie

the vibration began.

A slow rolling nicker

rumbled, more felt

than heard. Horses

called to us before

we were born, so we

would remember their

warm breath when we

first saw fairy-tale images

in children’s books. We

were theirs long before

we called them our own.

Journey

Peeping through a knothole in a pine fence,

a wind-worn cheek pressed to splintered wood.

Craning to watch a small girl in a handed-

down green t-shirt and blue jeans, scuffing

rubber-capped tennis shoes toward the

dairy barn. She's dragging a play-train,

three cardboard boxes strung together

with dirty twine, stuffed animals riding in

each box. Her voice carries; she's talking to

an old border collie in a manner so familiar

that my chest aches, closer than kin. Crooked

bangs, cut too short. The girl pauses when

the middle cardboard box catches on a weed

and the gabardine seal goes tail up. She gives

the twine a sharp tug to right the box and

the train rolls on. Hey, tomboy, safe journey.

Against Odds

Roused by a whisper

from a lost distance,

through cold glass

windows in deserted

basements, down wet

alleys past dumpsters

and stained mattresses,

heart-sore and bruised.

Relentlessly following

switchback dead ends,

thirsty creek beds, and

childish yearning, finally

to surrender the ache.

Come to rest on the

cooling prairie at the

far edge, by the stars.

Plain

Dreams are only

transparent. On this

routine day, let my

eyes close in simple

praise for ordinary

moments of wanting

what I already have.

Exhale

Oh, just admiration,

the gray horsewoman said,

pale eyes deep in tan skin.

Always kinda liked ’em…

But when she exhaled

there was a throaty sound,

deep and soft, with a faint

whisper of a nicker.

Spare

She’s a spare donkey, no longer of

use since the cattle were sold, since the

rancher moved to town. She’s uprooted,

landed in rescue, not eating but not dying,

she has come here to make up her mind.

My farm has a spare pen for a decrepit

long-ear. She’s brittle as ice but I have

more issues about my own age than she

does hers. Those eyes are nearly worn

out and her gray coat has felted to steel

wool. She has string halt, lifting her stilted

hind hooves too high each step. It’s been a

a spare life with few luxuries, not that she

minds. Prairie